


140 Christmases

by rc1788



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ALL CAPS, All Caps Secret Santa Fic Swap, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT3: All Caps, Samstevebucky - Freeform, a scene we are sadly robbed of, at some point in this fic bucky cuts down a fuckin pine tree for his husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rc1788/pseuds/rc1788
Summary: My secret santa fic swap for Unclesteeb who sent in too many good prompts to leave undone. I hope you like it, friend!
Prompt: The ot3 stuck in a blizzard on Christmas + Who gets to kiss Sam first under the mistletoe?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unclesteeb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unclesteeb/gifts).



“A quinjet?” Steve strode into the kitchen and cupped his hand over his ear, speaking into the com. “No. I don’t think that’s necessary.”

In the small living space behind Steve, Sam and Bucky argued over how to tear down the transmitter and equipment. Sam had, evidently, tried to pack up the cord without winding it properly, and Bucky was giving him shit.

“I know, and it’s up to three feet of snow out there,” Steve said. “… Tomorrow’s Christmas… but I think we’re gonna stay. Yeah, we got what we needed here. Sam’s uploading it now. …. No problem. Merry Christmas, Natasha.”

Steve ended the call and took the comlink out of his ear. He smiled as he set it down on the counter. No coms, at least for tonight. It’s Christmas, after all. From the window over the sink, Steve watched as the snow fell in huge, chunky snowflakes poured out of buckets.

“It’s not rocket science, Wilson,” Bucky snapped at Sam. “Just roll up the cord and wrap it. No tangled mess to clean up later.”

“Oh, gee, I’m sorry, Grampa. I didn’t realize technology was so confusing for you.”

Steve settled himself on the couch and let out a yawn. He’d had worse Christmases, he supposed.

“Y’know what, Wilson--”

Sam launched a pillow at Bucky and hit him square in the face.

“Merry Christmas to you, too, asshole,” Bucky grumbled, grabbing the pillow and hugging it against him.

“Sam, did you… need to be anywhere for Christmas?” Steve asked before Bucky could lay into him.

“What? Me? Nah.” Sam smirked as he typed away on his laptop.

_Figures_ , Steve thought. Sam wouldn’t have volunteered for a recon mission the week of Christmas if he had somewhere to be.

“Sam, don’t you have something like fourteen nieces and nephews?” Bucky asked.

“I have _four_ nieces and _two_ nephews, Barnes. And them and my mom and all my aunts and uncles went to Hawaii for Christmas.”

“Hawaii!” Steve said. “And you wanted to come to Minnesota for a recon in the middle of a blizzard.”

“By yourself,” Bucky chimed in.

“Listen, I panicked, okay? The only way I could get out of a twelve hour flight with my whole family was to pick up a job. I’m gonna go see them at New Year’s when they get back, so it’s not a big deal.”

Bucky looked up from the duffel bag in his hands and quirked a brow at Steve. The minute Steve found out Sam was going to isolate himself in a cabin for a week over Christmas, he knew something was up.

“You two can make sad puppy eyes at me all you want, but I guarantee this would not have been any sadder than your depression-era Christmases from a hundred years ago.”

“Eighty years ago,” Bucky corrected him.

“I rounded up.”

“Christmas wasn’t that bad.” Steve tilted his head as if he could conjure up a memory like a flashback. “We’d go to St. James Cathedral for midnight mass.”

“Then we’d go to the Lark’s, and they’d have rum and… What did they call it, Steve?”

“‘Special recipe.’”

“Moonshine.”

“Anyway,” Steve finished with a shrug, “most years my mom got off of work on Christmas, and that was always special for me.”

“I got a toy train from Santa when I was eleven. That was the year Steve didn’t…” Bucky frowned and Steve looked down at his hands. “We played with that damn train for hours.”

Sam folded in his lips to conceal a smile as he shut his laptop and slid it under the coffee table. “Okay, I get it. Your old timey Christmases weren’t sad as shit.”

“Right,” said Bucky. “So we’re here to make this Christmas the Best Christmas Ever. Between Steve and me, we missed a hundred and forty Christmases.”

“Okay, now _that’s_ sad,” Sam said.

Bucky threw his pillow at Sam. “You’re being a Scrooge.”

Sam caught the pillow and chucked it back at Bucky. “It’s been a tough year, Barnes, and I don’t really feel the Christmas spirit. I just wanted a quiet week out here. Instead, I got you two assholes tagging along.”

“You could have told us you didn’t want us to come,” said Steve.

“Let’s just say I prefer one of you over the other.”

“Fuck you, Wilson,” Bucky said without any venom.

“Maybe we should get some sleep,” Steve suggested, ever the mediator. “It’s almost 4 in the morning.”

“Good idea. Sam’s getting cranky.”

“I am not!” Sam said, crankily. He got up from where he’d been sitting on the floor and went over to Steve, tugging him by the shirt sleeve. “Let’s go.”

“You two get some shut eye,” Bucky said with half a smirk. “I’ll keep watch.”

Steve winked at Bucky. Bucky winked back. Sam’s brow creased as he got up and followed Steve into the cabin’s only bedroom. Did he just imagine that, or…?

\---

_Later, that same morning_

“Pop tarts roasting on an open fiiiire,” Sam sang. “James Barnes taking off his cloooothes.”

“They’re _wet_.”

Steve joined in. “Yuletide carols being sung by a dork.”

“Folks dressed up like hobos.” Sam tilted his head at Bucky, who shrugged on a faded plaid shirt. Sam broke out of the song. “Seriously, you look like a street rat.”

“This is _your_ shirt, Sam.”

The fireplace roared with a fire that had taken a lot of time and care to kindle, but Steve was the self-proclaimed “fire whisperer” and he’d managed to get the thing going after a half hour struggle. Bucky had just returned from what he would only refer to as “an expedition”--which turned out to be a three hour excursion while Sam and Steve slept--to bring back a six foot tall blue spruce tree that he cut down himself. Bucky had also busied himself with making paper snowflakes and placing them around the cabin, which made Steve wonder where he found a pair of scissors until he saw Bucky’s knife and paper scraps on the coffee table. _Why am I not surprised_?

All in all, Steve thought as he lounged back on the couch with his legs in Sam’s lap, not a bad way to spend Christmas. Sam queued up Christmas songs on his phone, and even though it was seven in the morning and each of them had only slept for a handful hours in the past two days, they were having fun.

“You uploaded the recon report to Hill, right?” Steve heard himself asking.

“Yes,” Sam insisted. “For the millionth time, yes. Can you please let it be Christmas now?”

“Yeah, Steve,” Bucky said, plucking a small branch from the tree and crossing the living room. “Let it be Christmas. It’s bad enough the three of us are snowed in a remote cabin without you constantly bringing up work.”

“I’m just--” Steve got that crinkle in his brow because he’s annoyed. Sam grabbed one of the warm double fudge pop tarts from where they were warming by the fire and stuck it in Steve’s mouth. Steve made a muffled sound of protest before before taking a bite.

“Barnes,” Sam asked over his shoulder, “can you get my bag?”

“Yeah, one sec.”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked.

“Putting up mistletoe,” said Bucky.

“That’s not mistletoe, that’s just a piece of pine,” Sam said.

“It’s mistletoe, dammit.”

Sam scoffed, then Bucky smacked him in the head with his bag. “Ow! Fucker!” Sam snatched the bag out of Bucky’s hand and mumbled only one more obscenity (since it was Christmas) before rifling through it. “Ah! Here it is.”

Sam nudged Steve’s legs off of him and set up a large box on the coffee table.

“Whiskey… Advent… Calendar,” Steve read on the label. “Oh, geez.”

“Sam!” Bucky jumped over the back of the couch and landed with a thud next to Sam. “You don’t do the advent calendar all in one night!”

“You’re not the Pope, screw you.” Sam already took out three of the small jars of whiskeys and started handing them out. “When you work as much as I have this season, yes you do!”

Steve grinned and raised his whiskey jar, and the other two followed. “To… having a mostly normal Christmas.”

“Nobody’s on ice this year,” Bucky said.

“Or at war,” Sam added.

“And we have a tree.” Steve nodded to the lightless, bare pine tree that Bucky murdered and dragged into the living room in the name of the holiday spirit. “So, Merry Christmas.” And they drank to that.

“Okay,” said Sam after drinking. “On the count of three, let’s all name the year of our favorite Christmases. One, two, three…”

“1989.” “1929.” “1929.”

“Same Christmas!” Steve said, nudging Bucky with his elbow.

“Oh, God. Give me a break.” Sam made an exaggerated gagging sound.

Bucky took a sip of whiskey and sucked in air between his teeth. “Sam, what happened in ‘89?”

“Got my first Walkman.”

“What’s a Walkman?” Steve asked.

“It’s a portable cassette player. Like an iPod, before everything went digital.” 

“Cassette… oh, right.”

“That must’ve killed you, only having a few songs to listen to,” Bucky said with a smirk.

Sam looked down at his hands, reverent. “Not really. I used to make my own mixtapes with my parents’ record collection. I listened to them all the time. On the way to school, when I did homework. It was the first time I ever owned something that was really special to me. Not just an action figure or a comic book. It’s how I fell in love with music.”

“You still have it?” Steve asked. He looked at Sam like there was nobody else in the whole world, rested his hand on his knee.

“Nah. Some kid--some _bully_ \--smashed it.”

“Who the fuck--” Bucky slammed his whiskey down on the coffee table. “I’m gonna kick their ass.

“I got a new one, but...” Sam shook his head, ran his hand over his face. “Was never like that first one.”

They fell into silence, and Bucky scooted onto the floor to keep making jagged paper snowflakes with his knife. Sam and Steve drank in unison, then they both refreshed their drinks with new whiskey jars.

“Hey…” said Steve, looking thoughtful. “We were all about ten years old on our favorite Christmases.”

“Huh.” Bucky threw back the rest of his whiskey and held out a hand for another jar. Sam ignored him and mumbled _get it yourself_ as he got up and went into the kitchen area, going through the small bag of food and supplies they’d left unceremoniously on the counter.

Sam glanced up and made a face at Bucky, who kept watching him over the couch with a concerning amount of curiosity.

Steve jumped when Bucky got up and launched himself over the back of the couch. He skid across the hardwood floor on his socks until he stopped in front of Sam. Sam’s eyes went wide. “What the--”

Bucky grabbed Sam by the shirt and pulled him in for a big sloppy kiss. Sam made a noise of surprise and gave him a little push.

“Mistletoe, motherfucker!” Bucky said, pointing up.

“That does _not_ make it mistletoe!”

Steve joined them, appraising the mistletoe with a genial lift of his brow. “I dunno Sam, looks like mistletoe to me.” And Steve slung a lazy arm around Sam’s waist and kissed him.

“You two are corny.”

“Love you too, Sam.”


End file.
